Due to present-day global climate change, a considerable effort has been made over the last few decades to provide reliable estimates of paleoclimate changes, particularly those occurring since the Holocene. Southwestern China is located in southeastern Asia, and contains landscapes of diverse and complex geomorphic types. Its climate is not only driven by global climate factors, but is also significantly affected by other regional factors. To infer the past climate changes that occurred in southwestern China and to better understand the mechanisms that drove those changes, we analyzed the vegetation succession and climatic changes in southwestern China since the Holocene based on palynological reconstructions and paleoclimate studies. The collections held by regional pollen databases and several well-dated sequences offered exceptional opportunities to investigate the past temperature and rainfall distributions in southwestern China during the Holocene, as well as their variations through time and space. The results of our analyses revealed that the paleoclimate of southwestern China could be classified into three stages. The initial stage was from 11.5 to 8 ka BP, during which the climate changed from cold-dry to warm-humid. The second stage (8-3.5 ka BP) was characterized by a relatively warm and humid climate. In the late Holocene (3.5 ka BP to present), the climate and environment became increasingly arid. The past climatic fluctuations we detected in southwestern China were consistent with global climate changes over the same periods. Notably, the climate of southwestern China responded more obviously to the 5.5 ka BP cold event than to the 8.2 ka BP cold event, indicating a typical characteristic of the regional climate. Future work will focus on integrating pollen data from multiple regions and exploring multiple climatic indicators, including the introduction of new methods, for the comparative verification of results. This will assist in improving our understanding of future climate change.